Cade begins his narration by asking the reader to imagine a "wizard" and then informs us that if we're seeing an old man with a long beard and pointy hat that we're idiots who've read too many fairy tales. He then drops straight into a battle where he and his fellow mercenary "wonderists" are laying siege to a city. Cade himself is pretending to be a wonderist who's magic is tied to the plane of Fortune, but in reality bargains for spells with the Infernals. His closest friend is a "thunderer" who is known to laugh as his lightning shatters walls and crushes defenders. Wonderists take on physical and mental traits from their plane of attunement, so they're a truly motley crew. This particular battle is taking place because the city refuses to recognize the latest religious leader chosen by the Lords Celestine, or gods of the Celestial plane. Personally, Cade believes that the Lords Celestine have lost their minds and he plans to murder the asshole who employs them. Cade's murder mission is interrupted when his fellow wonderists decide to kill him because the Glorian Justiciars have arrived. His ties to the Infernal plane aren't as secret as he thought, so Cade's fellow wonderists plan to kill him in the hopes that it will distract the Justiciars long enough for the rest of them to escape. Remember, just when things look bad they can always get worse..

On the run with with Corrigan the thunderer, who kills the other wonderists to save Cade, they take a job that Cade originally refused because it sounded too good to be true. Apparently a band of wonderists calling themselves The Seven Brothers laid claim to the town of Mages Grave and the local Baron is offering not only a monetary reward to a group of seven mages who disposes of them but also an artifact with a long winded name that most people just call the Apparatus. Corrigan's plan is to find five more mercenaries to join them starting with a swashbuckling rat mage named Aradeus who agrees to join them if they just help him with a little job first...which leads to their party acquiring an actual angel who goes by Shame, a brand new blood mage who doesn't know how to use her power, her pet jackal, and a demoniac who thinks she is more of a Glorian Justiciar than the actual Justiciars. Hopefully, they can pick up a seventh in Mages Grave?

Unfortunately this whole mess is far more complicated than Cade thought and he finds himself being used by both the Lords Devilish of the Infernal plane and the Lords Celestine. The real question that plagues Cade is why those two ancient enemies would cooperate in the first place but he begins to understand when he meets The Seven Brothers, and sees the remains of all the wonderists who have attempted to take them down. Can his band of somewhat sane wonderists do the impossible? Can Cade persuade them its worth dying for? 

This a Grimdark fantasy infused with as much irony and sarcasm as possible. Most of this book focuses on who Cade and how he became enmeshed in this current plan by the Infernals and Celestials despite not wanting to help either. The other characters have more straightforward tales except for Corrigan about whose previous life we get a single hint. The action is all at the beginning and then the end with most of the book focused on Cade detangling his past and present while they acquire more wonderists. Although the current crisis and Cade's personal drama seem mostly resolved by the end, it still feels like the first book in a series.

The writing is pretty good but from reviews it sounds like the narrator Joe Jameson elevates it to the next level. His perfomance is rated at 4.9 on Audible (the highest I've ever seen) and the story is only at 4.4 stars. I personally thought it got a bit slow in the middle but otherwise enjoyed this ironic necessary evil style adventure.